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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Greek yogurt... more than just a snack!

Salads don't always have to be in the background as a side dish - tonight's dinner, Spring Chicken and Blue Cheese Salad, was quite filling served as a main.

This recipe utilizes that sumptuous, thick Greek-style yogurt (we like the Fage brand) that is becoming quite popular and more available than it used to be. Because most of the liquid-y whey has been removed, you are able to cook with this yogurt without having any issues of separation. Four pieces of lean chicken breast are coated in a mixture of the yogurt, fresh tarragon, garlic and a couple tablespoons of extra-virgin olive oil. The chicken is then placed in a baking pan, drenched in any remaining yogurt mixture that didn't stick and baked.

While the chicken cools, a combination of tender torn butterhead lettuce, thin slices of bitter radicchio and baby spinach are tossed together to form the fresh base that sets off the juicy chicken. To complete the salad, we topped it off with an enticing blue cheese dressing that I made earlier and had kept chilled and covered in the refrigerator. Chunky crumbles of pungent blue cheese, extra-virgin olive oil, a couple splashes of red-wine vinegar, sweet sticky honey and another dose of bright fresh tarragon are mashed together to form the dressing. As is, the dressing was fairly thick, so we thinned it down and made it a little more creamy by mixing in a couple tablespoons of the Greek yogurt. Besides adding a pleasant tang, baking the chicken breasts, which can tend to dry out quickly, in the yogurt allowed them to stay very moist and tender.